Steve Arbogast
A quality management system is a framework of processes and procedures that are used to ensure that an organization can fulfill all tasks required to achieve its goals, strategies, and objectives...
Stewart Anderson
Story update 10/22/2009: We added a reference to Toyota Kata in the first paragraph.
The tools and techniques of what is commonly called “lean manufacturing” have their origin in the...
Miriam Boudreaux
When you think about equipment that is used for measuring and test activities, you think about important equipment that is used to pass or fail product but may not necessarily see its correlation...
Linda Gleespen
Ten years after the Institute of Medicine released its influential report "To Err Is Human" (www.iom.edu/en/Reports/1999/To-Err-is-Human-Building-A-Safer-Health-System.aspx), hospital care...
Steven Ouellette
I'm not saying that the following apply to you... really. But, you might be a Black Belt if...
You test your co-workers for normality – and find some of them to be non-normal and a little skewed...
Akhilesh Gulati
Isn't it the economy that's on everyone's minds? When will the economy pick up? Will we be able to survive until then or will we too become another company that used to exist? How do we ensure a...
Maribeth Kuzmeski
It happens to the best of us. An upset client calls to complain about a product or service, and you’re completely caught off guard. How do you react? Do you fly off the handle right along with him?...
Forrest Breyfogle—New Paradigms
The balanced scorecard is a commonly used vehicle that is to align organizational-chart work efforts to executive-determined strategies and goals. With this approach, strategic planning could be...
Tom LAcey
In 2005, according to a BBC News report at the time, operating rooms all over the United Kingdom were thrown into chaos and operations canceled due to broken, missing, or dirty surgical instruments...
Andrea Kabcenell
What if hospital leaders had an easier, more streamlined way to chart an improvement path for their organizations? Imagine a list of key processes that could—if implemented reliably—lower mortality...
GKS Global Services
In this case study of reverse engineering and rapid prototyping we will look at a company that developed an initial prototype of an anti-snoring device based on many years of research in the field...
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
On June 29, 1863, a 23-year-old First Lieutenant received an unexpected promotion. The freckle-faced, strawberry blonde, who graduated at the bottom of his class at West Point, was elevated directly...
Bill Kalmar
Regular readers of my column know that I abhor surveys that don’t provide some type of incentive or discount on a future purchase for completing the survey. I realize that I may have discussed this...
WinWare Inc.
What does a 13-person military team need to survive in Iraq and Afghanistan for five days by themselves without any base support? What types of protective gear and critical life saving items are...
Georgia Institute of Technology
Radio frequency identification (RFID) systems are widely used for applications that include inventory management, package tracking, toll collection, passport identification, and airport luggage...
Jay Arthur—The KnowWare Man
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n his inauguration speech, President Obama called for improving health care quality and reducing costs. In 2008, U.S. health care costs exceeded $2.4 trillion and are expected to climb to $3.1...
Ron Bialek, Jack Moran, Kim McCoy, William Riley, Lillian Shirley
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n emergency response organization differs substantially from our usual public health organization for day-to-day business. However, as the spring 2009 H1N1 (also referred to as swine flu) ...
Donald J. Wheeler
This is the final column in the debate between Donald Wheeler and Forrest Breyfogle on whether or not to transform data prior to analysis. Because the debate started with Wheeler's article "Do You...
Raissa Carey
To Chris Collins, lean and Six Sigma, just like government and business management, go hand in hand.
In Erie County, where he fiercely advocates that a lean government can and will save taxpayers...
ANDREA LAHOUZE
“It’s a messy world,” says Dusty Gibbs while walking past piles of copper wiring and kitchen sinks in the warehouse of Kirschbaum & Krupp (K&K) Metal Recycling LLC. “But this is about as...
